Slavery: letters and speeches

by Horace Mann

SPEECH

Delivered at Dedham, November 6, 1850, by Special Request of a Convention of Whig Voters of the Eighth Congressional District.

Gentlemen and Fellow-Citizens;

Having been specially invited to appear before this meeting, and address it, my friend Mr. Russell has introduced me to you with many kind words; and he has emphatically announced me as “your old friend.” By so doing, gentlemen, he has touched a living chord in my heart; for, as I look around me, I see many familiar and dear faces, and am reminded that, in this town, I spent some of the happiest years of my life. The sight of every object around me awakens remembrances of home. Right opposite to us is the court house, in whose forum my feeble voice was first raised, and where, I thank God, it was never raised in behalf of the oppressor, nor on the side of any cause which I believed to be wrong. Around this church in which we are assembled are the streets where I used to walk, there is the pew where I used to sit, and all around me are persons whom, for years, I saw daily and knew intimately, and knew them only to respect. I feel assured that I do meet “old friends,”—true men, who carry their hearts in their hands, and whose lives are anchored to their convictions of duty.

Gentlemen, it is not without embarrassment that I address you. Yet I might plead a high example for my course, if I were worthy, in any respect, to mention myself in connection with my venerated predecessor, who has made the past history of his country so luminous with his wisdom and purity, and the name of this district which he represented so honored and memorable. Would to God I could carry you to some Pisgah height, and show you, under one view, the past, the present, and the future, as he was wont to do, when, as was his custom, he used to address you on those great topics which employed his energies,—on the principles by which you ought to be guided, and on the dangers to which you were exposed.

We have fallen, gentleman, on momentous times. Great events have occurred, in rapid succession, both in this and in the other hemisphere. There seems to have been a grand upheaving of the elements of society from its deep foundations. We have been so often astonished and amazed, by shock after shock, and convulsion after convulsion, that I fear we are beginning to lose our moral sensibility to political catastrophes, however grand or fatal they may be.

You know there is a spot near the Mississippi River famous for the frequency of its earthquakes. A gentleman who visited there some years ago, told me that soon after entering a hotel, at a place called New Madrid, his attention was suddenly arrested by the rattling of the crockery, the jarring of the household furniture, and the shaking of the chair in which he sat. Starting up in trepidation, he sprang for the door. “O,” said his landlord, “don’t be alarmed. It is nothing but an earthquake.” These phenomena, it seems, had become so common as to have lost their power of exciting alarm. So, I fear, it is in regard to the late commotions in Europe; and especially in regard to some of the marvellous doings of Congress in our own country. From their astounding character, and their rapid succession, I fear we are becoming insensible to their importance, like the inhabitants who dwell at the base of Mount Etna, whom neither the rumbling of the mountain, nor the lava rivers which pour down its side, can awake from their stupor, until, like Pompeii or Herculaneum, they are buried in the ruins.

In the old world, things seem already to be settling back into their former condition, and hopes are darkening into fears. In this country, I still trust that we shall redeem something of the past, and secure the future. Yet the events of the last few months are of a disheartening character, if any thing could ever dishearten a true lover of his country. It has been my fortune and duty to be in the midst of these events. I have watched the tide of battle with sleepless eye; and when Liberty at last was stricken down, my heart bled with hers.

I believe I understand, gentlemen, what you wish me to do on this occasion; and therefore I shall endeavor to lay before you, briefly but impartially, the humble part which I, as your representative, have taken in those events which have filled the hearts of good men with alarm.

I would, however, premise a few words, in order to show how we have come, step by step, to the fearful position we now occupy.

Very early in our history, as a republic established to maintain the rights of man, an extent of territory was acquired equal to all we possessed before; and this addition accrued to the special advantage of those who maintain, as the first great article in their creed, the wrongs of man. The same European wars which enabled Mr. Jefferson’s administration to purchase Louisiana with fifteen millions of dollars,—a sum mostly paid by the north,—brought the commercial interests of the north also within the destructive sweep of those contests, and the non-intercourse act and the embargo were the consequence. These came upon New England at a time when commerce was her only resource. They brought as great a calamity upon the New England states as it would now be to the south if their whole cotton crop, or to the west if their whole grain crop, were to fail for a series of years. They palsied our industry; and, without industry, men, any where out of Paradise, will be poor. Upon the back of this calamity came the war of 1812, which we bore as well as we could, and performed our full share in carrying the country through it, though it cut off our very means of living. That war revealed a lamentable condition of things. It revealed the fact that, notwithstanding our political independence, we were, in a commercial sense, most deplorably dependent. It pointed to a new policy. It put the country upon achieving its second independence,—its independence, at least for the necessaries of life, of foreign mechanics, manufacturers, and artisans, as it had already achieved its political independence of foreign kings, aristocracies, and ecclesiastics. It gave birth to the American system, in which Calhoun, Lowndes, Cheves, and Clay,—all from the slave states,—took the lead. I mention the first three names, particularly, because they were from the state of South Carolina. So heartily did they enter into the new policy that they took their seats in Congress clad in homespun. They said they would exemplify their principles by their garments, and wear them outside as well as inside of their bodies. I am sorry their principles lasted but little longer than their clothes,—one suit worn out, and all, both without and within, clean gone. Even Mr. Madison boasted that his coat was woven in an American loom. The south led off in this policy, and New England, whose capital had been wrecked on the ocean, was reluctantly compelled to follow their lead. This was the origin of the protective tariff, the child of South Carolina, though, at a later period, adopted by Massachusetts. It was not, however, until 1824, that New England, and Massachusetts particularly, gave in her adhesion to the protective policy. Then our people engaged in manufactures. The streams were dammed, and the mighty powers of nature were set to spinning and weaving, to dyeing and printing, under the guidance of that genius which had been kindled and nurtured in our schoolhouses. Those establishments were founded which have produced so marvellous a change in our household condition, surrounding all with so many comforts, and filling our dwellings with so vast a variety of the refinements and luxuries of life. Those of you who have arrived at my age, and are therefore acquainted with the condition of things throughout our country towns thirty years ago, know that the change is almost magical. Though opposed in its inception by the cities and the merchants, yet it has promoted their prosperity not less than that of the people.

In the year 1820, a national question of a great moral character arose. The south, whose policy had before secured a territory as large as that of the original thirteen, sought to extend slavery over its whole surface. Missouri applied to be admitted into the Union as a slave state. The morality and religion of the north thought the time had come to arrest the strides of slavery, and they opposed the application. Earnest resistance was made. The battle was obstinately fought; but at last, the north, or rather enough recreants of the north yielded, and the day was lost. The south bought or bullied a sufficient number of the invertebrate creatures whom we send to Congress, and triumphed over us. This was the first great surrender of principle on the part of the north, and a fatal surrender it was. We, and humanity, and all that is dearest to the heart and thoughts of man, might have achieved the victory but for a few cases of foul treachery to the cause of freedom. O, that the retributions for that treason had been so terrible, that the coward motive of fear, if not the angel impulse of humanity, might have deterred all men in after times from ever daring to repeat it.

The next great struggle was in 1833, when nullification first reared its hideous head. At that epoch, the south, and especially South Carolina, observing that our capital had been too deeply invested in manufactures to be withdrawn, changed their policy, and sought to reap a double harvest,—both of the manufacturing system they had introduced, and of the free trade system they had abandoned. She therefore set about to strangle that offspring of protection to which she had given birth. Even in Virginia, Mr. Madison’s coat had become an unconstitutional coat, and the idea of American woollens so wrought upon Mr. John Randolph’s gentle affections, that he said he would go a mile out of his way to kick a sheep. The South Carolina resistance was beginning to assume a military form. Then occurred a most admirable opportunity to test the strength of our government,—to learn and know whether the pillars of this Union are made of granite or of pipe-stems. We had a clear case of right. In the chair of state was a man of Roman will, who would have rejoiced in the opportunity to see that the republic received no detriment. He contemned the nonsense as much as he despised the fraud, of the cry that the Union was in danger. If it was in any danger, he would have saved it in such a way that it would not need saving again every twelvemonth. But the chance was lost. A compromise was brought forward, by which South Carolina consented to a sort of armed truce, on her part, provided the tariff, though not given up, should be tapered down almost to nothing. Though, on many accounts, I have a high respect for the author of that compromise, yet I regard it as the most unfortunate act ever done,—the most fatal precedent ever set by this government. It taught the south the efficacy of clamoring; it taught them that there are cases where a Bombastes Furioso is as powerful as a Julius Cæsar; and it taught them also, notwithstanding all appearances of solidity and firmness, of what a delicate nervous tissue a money-bag consists.

When that compromise law had had time to reach its legitimate issues, you all know the result. A whirlwind of bankruptcy swept over the land. Its ravages reached even the humblest portions of society. The laborer suffered even more than the capitalist. The latter suffered in his gains, but the former in his bread. All classes perceived the cause; and they rallied, almost as one man, to that tremendous effort to change the policy of the country, which resulted in the election to the presidency of General Harrison. Though, but a few days after his inauguration, the reins of government fell from his lifeless hands, yet the tariff of 1842 was the consequence of his election. This restored the drooping fortunes of New England. Then it was, while we were immersed in our business and our money making, that southern politicians addressed themselves to that great scheme of pro-slavery aggrandizement,—the annexation of Texas. You are all familiar with the details of this transaction, and it is painful to revert to them. The kid was seethed in its mother’s milk. Northern Democrats cast the votes which gave Texas to the south, and destroyed our own prosperity. Texas was admitted just in season to repeal, by her votes in the Senate, the tariff of 1842, by that of 1846. This again put in jeopardy all our means embarked in manufactures. Would to Heaven that nothing more dear than pecuniary interests had been sacrificed by that measure.

I do not blame the south for seeking an equilibrium with the north; but they do not seek the true equilibrium. If they would sustain themselves in a competition with us in economical affairs, they must encourage labor and render it honorable. They must, all of them, labor as we do, in one way or another, with the hand or with the head; or,—which is the only true way,—with both together. They must build schoolhouses to develop the minds of their children, and churches to cultivate their morals. If they would only do this, and not attempt to carry every thing by slave-begotten votes, and by adding new states to beget more slave votes, they would soon surpass us; for nature has done vastly more for them, in soil and climate and in all the means of earthly prosperity, than for us. A superiority obtained in this way, we, as lovers of human happiness, should not repine at, but rejoice in.

The next struggle in which they engaged for political aggrandizement, was the Mexican war. It could, indeed, hardly be called a struggle,—the north so readily and ignominiously yielded. They wanted more territory. Texas, already gravid with future slave states, was not sufficient. And though it was yet somewhat uncertain whether Congress would not interdict the extension of slavery over that country, even should they conquer it; still, as they had always triumphed in their contests with us, they assumed the risk, and trusted to their future prowess and skill to monopolize the plunder. The territory was conquered; and then, perhaps, the most important question arose which has ever come before this country since the Declaration of Independence. The most momentous consequences were suspended on the decision of this question. We had, as it were, a creative power put into our hands. We had the shaping of the destinies of half a continent intrusted to our keeping. Our authority once exercised, the act would be irrevocable, and the doom of all that region would be fixed, as by a decree of Omnipotence. When God gives to the world a generation of children, and they are ruined through parental neglect, he gives another generation, that another trial may be made. But if we once admit slavery into those immense regions, comprising all the unsettled residue of this continent, God will give us no new continent on which the error may be retrieved.

Now, on this great question, what has been done? I grieve to say that I fear the battle has been lost. If not lost, nothing can save it but a vigor and an energy on the part of the north, such as they have not lately put forth. So far as legislation is concerned, the whole battle field is in possession of the enemy. Let me read a passage from one of the acts of the last session of Congress, which settles this fact. By the law for creating the territorial government of New Mexico, it is expressly provided,—

“That when admitted as a state, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, WITH OR WITHOUT SLAVERY, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.”

The act providing a territorial government for Utah contains a provision precisely similar. In regard to Texas, we have gratuitously given her a right to form one more slave state than she was authorized to do by the resolution of annexation. By the third article of the second section of that resolution, Texas was authorized to form new states, not exceeding four, of which those south of 36° 30´ should be admitted, with or without slavery, as their people should elect, while in the state or states, (and there must, therefore, be at least one,) which should be formed north of 36° 30´, there should be no slavery or involuntary servitude except for crime. But by the act of the last session, for establishing the boundary of Texas, though the United States buys up the claim of Texas to all the territory north of 36° 30´, yet it authorizes Texas to form as many slave states out of the residue of her territory, as she could have formed by the resolution of annexation, both of slave and free. This is manifest, by the following provision:—

“Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to impair or qualify any thing contained in the third article of the second section of the joint resolution for annexing Texas to the United States, approved March 1, 1845, either as regards the number of states that may hereafter be formed out of the State of Texas, or otherwise.”

Here, then, instead of three states, four are provided for, with full consent that they shall all be slave states. Now, I ask, if this gift of a slave state is a trifle to be thrown in like the value of a small coin in the settlement of an account? In some of the pro-slavery papers of the north, which have professed to publish this act for the information of their readers, I have observed that this clause has been left out! They did not dare to trust their readers during the present political campaign with a knowledge of it.

I know it is said, by here and there an individual, that slavery cannot go into those territories. But it is to be remembered that all the south, almost as one man, dissent from this proposition. They say it can and shall; and is not their opinion, on such a subject, of greater weight than that of any northern man? They threaten to dissolve the Union if slavery be prohibited from going there. Are they such lunatics as to dissolve the Union, because we assume to prohibit what nature has already made impossible? Slave states border on those territories, and should there be any rush of emigration towards them, as, by the discovery of mines or other causes there may be, a cloud of slaves would immediately overspread them. If it be said that the local law of the territories prohibits slavery, I reply, so it did in Texas. Slavery had been abolished throughout Mexico, of which Texas was a province. But though slavery was no longer legal there, peonage was. Hence the southern planters, at least some of them, when about to remove to Texas, indented their own slaves to themselves, as peons, so that they might hold them by the Mexican law of peonage, until they should become strong enough to pass a law for slavery. It will be no more difficult to introduce slavery into New Mexico and Utah than it was into Texas.

I will not now go back to the questions which agitated the country and the Whig party at the time when General Taylor was nominated for the presidency. Whatever I may have thought of him, and of the propriety of nominating him, it is but justice to say that I now believe that he was a true man, and an anti-slavery man. He intended honestly to carry out the will of Congress, and execute the laws of his country, regardless of slaveholding dictation. He would have crushed the first movement for disunion; or rather, a knowledge of what he would do, would have prevented any such movement. With his own lips, in his own house, he told me that in case any state should attempt to nullify an act of Congress, he should immediately order a naval force to blockade its coast; he would allow nothing to pass into, or to come out of, the rebellious state; and in six months, said he, it would give up its resistance without the shedding of blood. It was President Taylor’s plan, as you well know, to leave the adjustment of the slavery question to the territories themselves; not that he was not prepared to have it settled by Congress, and a prohibition imposed, but because he saw that while a prohibitory act might be passed by the House, it would certainly be rejected by the Senate. He therefore threw himself forward to what he knew the condition of things must be, after all the ineffectual attempts at legislation on the subject had been made; and he adopted that future condition and result of things as his present plan of action. Should the northern members of the House prove true to their constituencies and their pledges, they would never allow the territories to be organized without the proviso; and the fear of such a prohibition would exclude slavery from the territories, as certainly as the prohibition itself. Slaveholders would not venture to carry slaves into a country, where, at any moment an act of Congress might emancipate them. And if slavery could only be kept out of the territories while they remained territories, it would, of course, be prohibited by the state itself, when the condition of territorial pupilage should be succeeded by that of state independence. A boy trained up to virtuous resolves until the day he is twenty-one, will not adopt all the vices the day after.

The recent act has given Texas more than fifty thousand square miles of free New Mexican territory, and the promise of ten millions of dollars in fourteen years, with interest at five per cent. up to that time; which, at compound interest, makes a prospective grant of twenty millions of dollars. This is done on pretence of discharging debts which she owed at the time of her annexation. But those debts, at the highest estimate, do not exceed seven millions, so that a clear gratuity is left to her of at least three millions in addition to the grant of another slave state. The interest of these three millions will support her government, and keep her supplied with the means of fighting the battles of slavery.

There is something most extraordinary in the claim of Texas to the territory for which she has obtained so extravagant a price. Her title was not by conquest, nor by purchase, but by an act of her own legislature. She claimed the territory merely because she had extended her legislation over it, when she had no more right to legislate for it than for Canada. I have brought with me for your inspection, if any of you desire to see them, a series of maps which illustrate the growth of Texas. By Humboldt’s map, of 1804, Texas contained 71,752 square miles. By Tanner’s map, of 1826, it contained 108,097 square miles. By Austin’s map, of 1839, it had grown to 179,567 square miles. The late claim of its legislature was the enormous quantity of 325,000 square miles, which the act of Congress cuts down only to 237,321! By its own legislative assumptions it grew from 70,000 to 325,000 square miles. By good husbandry, in this part of the country, we are able to make greater crops grow on the same land, but in Texas they make the land itself grow. I think Humboldt himself would have been astonished at any such geological theory of the uprising of the earth as would enlarge an area of 70,000 square miles, in an inland country, into more than 300,000, in less than fifty years.

But, fellow-citizens, slavery is already in the territories, whether prohibited by God and nature, or not! The line of 36° 30´ crosses the territory appropriated to the Indians, which is already full of slaves. Whenever the Indian title is extinguished, slavery will be found there in possession of the soil. Utah has slaves to-day, and I was informed by a gentleman chosen as a delegate from that territory to Congress, that the Mormon religion prescribes nothing on the subject.

I need not now dwell on another act of the last session,—the Fugitive Slave Law,—because, as yet, I believe no voice in Massachusetts has been raised in its defence or palliation. It is an act which might turn all of us here, at this moment, into slave hunters; which might break up this meeting at the present time, should an officer, clothed with the authority of the United States, appear at that door and command us to chase an alleged fugitive, perhaps a native-born freeman, over the graves of our Pilgrim fathers.

Standing here, then, before you, my constituents, to give account of my stewardship, I have to say, that with voice and vote, by expostulation and by remonstrance, by all means in my power, I have, to the full extent of my ability, resisted the passage of all these laws. Why have I done so? Because, in the first place, I felt myself a moral and accountable being; and, as such, I could not do otherwise. I have done so, in the second place, because I was your representative, and believed myself to be acting in conformity with your wishes, with the wishes of the Whig party of Massachusetts, and of my constituents generally. Have I been mistaken? [A volley of noes.]

To ascertain what were the wishes of the Whig party, and of those who put me in nomination, I shall refer you to a series of the resolutions of conventions, and of the declarations of the best accredited authorities of that party, on this subject, for years past. The following are among the resolutions of the Whig convention which assembled in this town, March, 1848, to nominate a successor to the Hon. John Quincy Adams. They were unanimously adopted:—

“Resolved, That the members of this convention, met together for the purpose of nominating a candidate to supply the vacancy existing in the eighth congressional district, mourn, in common with the state and the nation, the event which has deprived them of the services of that eminent son of Massachusetts, whose voice was ever raised in the cause of freedom, whose vast and varied powers, more than those of any other statesman of his time, were devoted to the service of his country, shedding light upon her institutions, and leading her on in the path of duty, prosperity, and glory.

“Resolved, That the loss of his services in the halls of Congress, at this time, is the more deeply to be deplored, when his great weight of character, his influence, his talents, his wisdom, his zeal, and indomitable energy would have been so benignly felt upon the great questions of freedom and slavery, which are to be discussed and settled for our newly-acquired domain, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

“Resolved, That it behooves us to unite upon a candidate to represent this district upon the floor of Congress, whose principles shall be in consonance with those of his predecessor, whose fidelity to the great principles of human freedom shall be unwavering, whose voice and vote shall on all occasions be exercised in extending and securing liberty to the human race.”

In September, 1848, the Whig state convention of Massachusetts met at Worcester, when the following resolution, among others, reported by the Hon. Joseph Bell, of Boston, since then president of the Massachusetts Senate, was unanimously adopted:—

“Resolved, That being impressed with a profound sense of our responsibility, as the representatives of the Whigs of Massachusetts, that responsibility which attaches to our words, acts, and votes,—we cannot fail, on this occasion, as we have never failed on any other general assemblage of the Whigs of Massachusetts, to record, in the most solemn and deliberate manner, our unqualified opposition to any extension of the institution of slavery into our territory, or any acquisitions of territory, for the purpose of such extension. On this question, the voice of the Whigs of Massachusetts has been unwavering and uniform, and never has that voice spoken with higher eloquence and power than when our distinguished senator in Congress, speaking for himself, and for the whole people of the commonwealth, said, ‘I consent to no further extension of the area of slavery in the United States, or to the further increase of slavery representation in the House of Representatives.’”

In September of the same year, another Whig convention assembled at this place, to nominate a candidate for the Thirty-first Congress. My views, as recorded by my votes on all the questions of slavery, and as expressed in my speech, delivered on the 30th of the preceding June, were then before the people. That convention, among other resolutions, passed the following, by acclamation:—

“Resolved, That we cordially approve of the course of the Hon. Horace Mann, and that his position in regard to free principles, free labor, and free speech, sustained with such signal ability, was but a satisfactory fulfilment of the expectations that we had when we nominated him to succeed the illustrious Adams. Regarding the past as the best and only honorable pledge of the future, this convention unanimously present his name to the people of this district for reëlection.”

At the Whig state convention, held at Springfield, September 29th, 1847, Mr. Webster said he would consent to no extension of slavery. Are not the laws which I have just read a consent?—full consent? He claimed the Wilmot proviso as his “thunder,” and said it had been stolen from him. Whether stolen from him, or not, I do not decide. He certainly seems to have lost possession of it; for we now find him thundering on the other side;—yes, from the high Olympus to which the votes of Massachusetts had elevated him, he has hurled his bolts against the dearest interests of his benefactors. But it is said we have registered these acts of pro-slavery legislation, at the dictation of the south, in order to save the Union. When Governor Davis was once asked to surrender the rights of humanity to save the Union, he retorted with the question, “How many times have we got to save the Union?” If we yield to every threat of disunion, we shall have to save the Union whenever any factious and unprincipled member of it shall threaten resistance to the laws. Look at the present threat which has been made by Texas. What resources has she wherewith to oppose the general government? She has no funds except a school fund of $34,000, which her governor, in one of his late messages, declared to be inviolably devoted to education. To be sure, since this cry of rebellion has been raised, he has said that this fund, which could be diverted for no useful purpose, might be appropriated to the treasonable one of resistance. But look at the amount of this fund,—$34,000. Military men tell me it would not support a single regiment of mounted rangers more than a month; and all the more settled parts of Texas are at least one month’s marching distance from Santa Fe, which is the nearest point of attack. There was never any thing more ridiculous than the threats of Texas, that she will take armed possession of the eastern side of the Rio Grande, if it be not surrendered to her. She cannot even protect herself against the Indian tribes that roam through the regions lying between her and the people she threatens to subjugate. Will the disaffected states of the south help her by munitions, money, or men? The only states on which she could place any reliance are Mississippi and South Carolina. Could a military force be organized, and then marched nearly a thousand, or nearly fifteen hundred miles, across the country, to uphold the Texan banner on the borders of the Rio Grande? Were expeditions to be sent by sea, could not the mouth of the Mississippi, the harbor of Charleston, and that gateway of the Gulf of Mexico, which lies between the capes of Florida and the West India Islands; ay, the whole Texan coast itself, be blockaded and guarded, so as to make a hostile irruption into New Mexico impossible? Talk about Texan resistance to the government of these United States, my fellow-citizens; it is so ridiculous that nothing can be conceived which is not less ridiculous, and which would, therefore, by the very comparison, relieve the supposition of a portion of its nonsense. This surrendering to the threat of disunion, is like the foolish mother who gave her boy a sugar-plum to stop swearing. Presently he belched out a stream of profanity; and when the mother asked him why he did so, he said, “I want more sugar-plums.” General Taylor embraced the whole subject in a short sentence when he said he was more afraid of Texan bonds than of Texan bayonets. Their bonds have been ten thousand times more powerful than their bayonets in consummating this disastrous compromise.

But it is not only in conventions of the Whig party that sentiments have been expressed wholly incompatible with the great surrenders we have made. Such sentiments have emanated from more authoritative sources. They are the voice of our commonwealth,—the repeated voice, reiterated again and again, through a series of years. Let me select a few from among the many resolves of the Massachusetts legislature, covering the time, and preceding the time, that I have been in Congress. The following was passed in 1847:—

“Resolved, unanimously, That the legislature of Massachusetts views the existence of human slavery within the limits of the United States as a great calamity, an immense moral and political evil, which ought to be abolished, as soon as that end can be properly and constitutionally attained, and that its extension should be uniformly opposed by all good and patriotic men throughout the Union.”

Again, in 1849, the legislature of Massachusetts

“Resolved, That when Congress furnishes governments for the territories of California and New Mexico, it will be its duty to establish therein the fundamental principles of the ordinance of seventeen hundred and eighty-seven, upon the subject of slavery, to the end that the institution may be perpetually excluded therefrom beyond every chance and uncertainty.”

And again, during this present year, and not six months ago, the same general court passed the following resolve. I might read from the printed volume of the “Acts and Resolves of 1850;” but I choose to read from this official circular which I hold in my hand, which is attested by the secretary of state, and was sent to me at Washington, as to all the other members of Congress from Massachusetts, so that we might be informed of the views of the state government, as well as of our respective constituencies, on this important subject:—

“Resolved, That the people of Massachusetts earnestly insist upon the application by Congress of the ordinance of 1787, with all possible sanctions and solemnities of law, to the territorial possessions of the Union in all parts of the continent, and for all coming time.

“Resolved, That the people of Massachusetts, in the maintenance of these their well known and invincible principles, expect that all their officers and representatives will adhere to them at all times, on all occasions, and under all circumstances.”

And yet, in six months, we are called upon to support these laws. Is this “all coming time”? Are these “invincible principles” of the Massachusetts Whig legislature to melt, like wax, when touched by the breath of party? They notified me, under their seal and sign-manual, that they expected “all their officers and representatives to adhere to them, at all times, on all occasions, and under all circumstances.” And yet, before six months have elapsed, some of the very men who voted to give me such instructions, or injunctions, or whatever you please to call them, having discarded their own solemn asseverations of principle, now upbraid me because I, too, will not be recreant to them. Is this what you are to expect from men whom you have elected by your votes, and to whom the momentous interests of millions, and the honor of the country, have been confided, that their vows should be like those of perfidious lovers, who swear “eternal fidelity”—during the honey moon? We cannot plead the excuse, in regard to these resolves, which a certain hearer of Whitfield did, for appearing unmoved at one of his pathetic discourses, while all others were melted to tears. When asked why he, too, did not weep, he replied that “he did not belong to that parish.” We do belong to this parish. These are the “acts and resolves” of our own state, fresh and unsullied from the mint. We cannot deny their genuineness. If we impute fraud any where, it must be to the motives of those who passed them. Hear, too, what Governor Briggs says on this same subject, in his last inaugural address:—

“Entertaining no doubt of the constitutional power of Congress to exclude slavery from its own territories, and believing that such exclusion is demanded by the highest principles of morality and justice, she never can consent to its extension over one foot of territory where it now is not. If the other free states concur with her in this resolution, the thing will be done, and consequences left to themselves.”

Thus have the Whig party in this state, and its executive, pledged themselves not to extend slavery “one foot.” How many feet in the six hundred thousand square miles, into which the legislation of the last Congress permits slavery to enter?—which legislation the Whig party is now called upon to indorse,—that is, how many myriad pledges do they require us to break?

Let me now quote from another high Whig authority,—General James Wilson, of New Hampshire. For many years, probably no man has been considered a more authoritative expounder of Whig sentiment. He has been employed by the party, or the organs of the party, to traverse the country for the advocacy of Whig principles, and has been every where listened to with great acceptance. In Congress, he spoke as follows:—

“I hold that Congress is bound to take care of the territories, and so execute the trust as will best promote the interests of those who may hereafter be entitled to the beneficial use. As a member of this Congress, I feel that I sustain a part of that responsibility, and it is my desire to acquit myself worthily in meeting it. I desire so to acquit myself that my own conscience will not upbraid me, and that when I shall pass away, no reproach shall fall upon me, or my children after me, for my acts here upon this momentous question. I have, sir, an only son, now a little fellow, whom some of this committee may have seen here. Think you that when I am gone, and he shall grow up to manhood, and shall come forward to act his part among the citizens of the country, I will leave it to be cast in his teeth, as a reproach, that his father voted to send slavery into those territories? No! O, no! I look reverently up to the Father of us all, and fervently implore him to spare that child that reproach. May God forbid it!

“I have said that it is characteristic of the slave power to accomplish all of its political purposes in this government. I must now say that the power and influence of slavery over the action of Congress is impaired, if not entirely gone. [What an infinite mistake!] I make this declaration, not because I have any confidence in the politicians of the day. No, sir, I have none whatever. The politicians are just as ready now to betray their constituents as they ever have been. I am sorry to say there is evidence enough of this. My confidence is in the people. They have taken the matter into their own hands; they have brought themselves into order of battle and line, without the word of command from any political leader. Here they stand, with front rank, and rear rank, and rank of file-closers in position, with bayonets at a charge. They have spoken to their representatives in a voice of thunder, and warned them against abandoning their interests. They have bid them do it at their peril. The constituents have challenged their representatives to betray their trusts, and skulk and retreat upon them, if they dared.

“And, sir, the constituencies have spoken ‘upon honor.’ They are determined, and will execute their purposes. There was a time, when, if the slave power had any special work to be done, and wanted a northern man to do it, they hunted him up from New Hampshire. Little, unfortunate New Hampshire was called upon to furnish the scavenger to do the dirty work. That day, thank God, has gone by, and it will not come again very soon. [Wait a short year, Mr. Wilson, and see who the Hazael will be.]

“The north are not disposed to trespass or interfere with the rights of the south. Where slavery exists within the states, the northern people claim no right to interfere with it by any political action of this government. The people ask no action by Congress on the subject of slavery within the states. But gentleman need not ask me for my vote to extend the institution of slavery one single inch beyond its present boundaries. Did I say an inch, Mr. Chairman? Ay, I would not extend it one sixteen-thousandth part of a hair’s breadth. I would not extend it, because it would be doing an irretrievable wrong to my fellow-man; because it would be doing irreparable wrong to those territories for which we are now to legislate; because it would be doing violence to nature and to nature’s God; and because it would be a wicked and wanton betrayal of the trust confided to me by the free, intelligent constituency which has done me the honor to send me here.

“It shall not be in the power of any man to shake a menacing finger at me, and look me in the face with a jibe of contempt, and say to me, in the insulting language of a former representative from Virginia, [Mr. Randolph,] ‘we have conquered you, and we will conquer you again; we have not conquered you by the black slaves of the south, but by the white slaves of the north.’ No, sir, that remark shall never apply to me. Gentlemen need not talk to me, or attempt to frighten me, by threats of dissolution of the Union. Sir, I do not permit myself to talk, or even think of the dissolution of the Union; very few northern men do. We all look upon such a thing as impossible. But, sir, sir, if the alternative should be presented to me of the extension of slavery, or the dissolution of the Union, I would say, rather than extend slavery, let the Union, ay, the Universe itself be dissolved! Never, never will I raise my hand or my voice to give a vote by which it can or may be extended. As God is my judge, I cannot, I will not be moved from the purpose I have now announced.”

And yet this same General Wilson did vote for every one of these laws, excepting, perhaps, the last, which passed in the night,—fit darkness for so dark a deed,—and the next morning he was off for California. How can such a man stop this side of Botany Bay? Now, fellow-citizens, did you want me to disgrace myself, and you, and human nature, too, by such an act of flagrant apostasy? [A crash of noes.] Yet if these measures are adopted and sustained by the Whig party, and if those men who committed these nefarious deeds are justified and upheld by you, then how are you less guilty than General Wilson?[16]

Let me quote a passage or two from a speech delivered by one of my colleagues in Congress, the Hon. George Ashmun, who has, I believe, usually been considered pretty good Whig authority. In a speech made by him on the 27th of last March, referring to the subjects of slavery in the territories and the recaption of alleged fugitive slaves, he said,—

“But I am bound to say, however, if the south persist in uniting to demand the entrance of slavery into our free territories, I, for one, must conform to what are, at the same time, the views of my constituents and the convictions of my own judgment; and if I am driven to the alternative, I shall not hesitate to vote for the proviso.”—App. to Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 31st Congress, p. 401.

“While I desire to do every thing which may protect the rights of property which are guarantied to citizens of the slave states, I cannot consent to sacrifice the rights of liberty which belong to the citizens of the free states. To secure both these ends, I see no other mode than to have those rights settled before legal tribunals, by the verdicts of juries and the judgments of courts.... When a colored man is seized in Massachusetts upon a claim that he is the property of a citizen of a slave state, and he claims to be a citizen of Massachusetts, and invokes the protection of the laws of Massachusetts, is it to be said he may be summarily sent away by the decree of any one magistrate without the privilege of vindicating his title to his citizenship before a jury of the country? Why, sir, it could not be done in the case of a horse escaped from one state to another, and found in the possession of a citizen. It could not be taken by strong hand,—by force. The claimant must resort to process of law. He must sue out his writ of replevin, and the title of the defendant must be tried where he lives. That defendant may be a negro; and surely, if without a trial by jury you may not take that which he claims to be his property, you can hardly claim to seize the man himself, and carry him away, before his title to freedom has been tested by a tribunal, as respectable, at least, and as safe, as that which settles a title to his horse.”—Ib. p. 399.

And another of my colleagues, [Mr. Duncan,] even as late as the 7th of June last, emphatically declared, in the House of Representatives, as follows:—

“If territorial bills are presented for the government of New Mexico and Utah, I shall vote for the exclusion of slavery from those territories.

Let me fortify these citations by another from one of the acknowledged leaders of the Whig party,—the Hon. Rufus Choate:—

“On all the great questions of the day, but just slavery; on executive power, on internal improvement, on the protection of labor, on peace, and the constitution, we mean to remain the same party of Whigs, one and indivisible, from Maine to Louisiana,—one vast incorporation of consentaneous feeling throughout the land; and upon this question alone we always differ from the Whigs of the south; and on that one we propose simply to vote them down.”[17]

I will quote a passage also from a recent letter of the Hon. Zeno Scudder, late a Whig president of the Massachusetts Senate, and now a candidate of the Whig party for Congress, in District No. 10:—

“I was at the Springfield convention when Mr. Webster said, ‘Not another inch of slave territory; no, not one inch!’ By the aid of his remarks on that occasion, I was confirmed in the views which I had before entertained, and have as yet seen no reason to change them.

“In 1847, I had the honor and pleasure of recording my ‘yea’ in favor of the resolves ‘concerning the existence and extension of slavery within the jurisdiction of the United States,’ and ‘concerning the Mexican war and the institution of slavery,’ which passed the legislature of last year; and had I been a member of that body at its last session, I should have given my support to the resolve ‘concerning slavery,’ which was then passed.

“When I recorded my ‘yea,’ and advocated the resolves of 1847, I did not suppose them to be idle words, written out to be bandied about and declaimed upon in Massachusetts, and be laid snugly away, if ever I should depart the jurisdiction. I supposed them to involve great principles of human freedom, which were to be applied throughout the length and breadth of our country, whenever and wherever the time and place might present legitimate opportunities therefor.”

At the Whig state convention held at Springfield in 1847, a resolution was submitted by Dr. Palfrey, “that the Whigs of Massachusetts will support no men for the offices of president and vice-president, but such as are known by their acts, or declared opinions, to be opposed to the extension of slavery;” and Mr. William Dwight, then of Springfield, is reported to have said, “You cannot vote for a candidate not known to be opposed to slavery extension; it would be guilt.”

But, fellow-citizens, I might go on citing authorities of this kind until sunset;—nay, until sunlight should come round again, and still leave the greater part of my resources untouched. I will refer you but to one more,—a resolution passed at the late Whig state convention, only a few days ago, which was as follows:—

“Resolved, That Massachusetts avows her unalterable determination to maintain all the principles and purposes she has in times past affirmed, and reäffirmed, in relation to the extension of slavery; and the measure of success which has attended her exertions is a new incentive to continue and persevere in all constitutional efforts, till the great and good work shall be accomplished and perfected.”

And now, gentlemen, let me ask you whether my action has been in accordance with these sentiments, as expressed by the highest acts of the party and the most solemn resolutions of the state? [An acclamation of yeas.]

Here, fellow-citizens, I come to the test question: Did we, as true Whigs, and as honorable men, make all these declarations in sincerity, meaning to stand by them to the end; or was it done, from time to time, to beguile a portion of our fellow-citizens of their votes, on the vile doctrine that “all is fair in politics”? Were we frank and in earnest, or were we hollow and fraudulent?

I know very well what influences have been brought to bear upon us. I know we are a people intent on thriving, and on worldly prosperity. Every young man amongst us sets out in life determined to better his condition. This, to me, is no cause of regret, but of rejoicing. If the spirit of thrift does not transgress the limits of honor and duty, it is not only right but laudable. The animal wants of man must be supplied before he will develop his intellectual or moral powers. You may find individuals who will be virtuous amid want and privation,—heroes in virtue;—but a virtuous community in rags and hunger, you will never find. We must put society in a condition of physical comfort, before it will rise to mental excellence. I am an ardent advocate, therefore, of all measures tending to increase the wealth of the country; but on this ever-present and everlasting condition, that it is done without a sacrifice of principles. Any enlargement of business, any increase of profits, any augmentation of wealth, gained by a community through a dereliction from principle, is as insecure and as ignominious as the gains of an individual through fraud, embezzlement, or peculation.

For the purpose of rewarding our native labor, therefore, I am for a protective tariff. Perhaps some persons may be here present who dissent from this opinion; but I came here to avow, and not to conceal my sentiments and acts. It has always seemed to me that we must protect our labor against foreign labor, or our laborers at home will fall to the condition of the pauper laborers abroad. In Manchester in England, and Glasgow in Scotland, and many other manufacturing towns in Great Britain, there are thousands of wretched, degraded female operatives, who earn scarcely a shilling a day. After their day’s work is done, they visit the dram-shops, roam the streets till midnight, and if not invited away by vicious men, they huddle by scores into filthy lodging-houses, where they sleep, men and women promiscuously, till morning summons them back to their tasks. Now where labor is so scantily paid, fabrics can be produced more cheaply; and if these fabrics can be sent into this country, free of duty, they will undersell ours, until the prices of our labor and the condition of our laborers are reduced to theirs. Nothing is left to protect our industry but the cheaper freight of the materials, and that is too trifling a compensation to be of any account. This is the whole philosophy of the matter, and to me it has always seemed unassailable.

It has been thought and said that if we would yield to the south on the slavery question, they would yield to us on the tariff question. We have surrendered the slavery question. Have we got the tariff? Have we got any thing but disgrace in the eyes of the civilized world? To me, it seems that our chance for a tariff is greatly diminished. For the majority which is necessary to enable us to pass a tariff law, we must depend on our opponents. By our yielding to the south, their party discipline has been immensely strengthened, and it is now more difficult than ever to obtain their votes for any measure conducive to northern interests. Besides, they now say they will retain the tariff question as an open one, in order to keep us on our good behavior. What have those now to say for themselves, who beguiled a portion of our people into the delusion, that they might safely barter human rights for pecuniary advantages, and have left to their dupes both the loss of the advantages, and the disgrace of abandoning their principles!

But an appeal is made to us to ratify this surrender to the slave power, because of our love for the Union. And is our love for the Union always to be converted, or rather perverted, into a pro-slavery motive of action? I join you all most cordially, I join any one, in avowing my regard for the Union, and my resolution to stand by it. But the Union ought to be so used as to extend, and not to abridge human welfare. If, in order to maintain the Union, we must sacrifice all the great objects for which the Union was formed,—the establishment of justice, the promotion of the general welfare, and the securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,—then the Union no longer represents a beneficent divinity but a foul Dagon, and is worthy to be broken in pieces. A Union which must be secured by such sacrifices as have been lately made in New York, in behalf of the so called “Union Meeting,” abolishes the benefits it was designed to secure. Eight thousand signatures were obtained for calling that meeting; but to procure them, whole streets were scoured, and men were threatened with the publication of their names, and the consequent loss of southern custom, if they refused to join in the call. Many were obliged to pay hush money to prevent exposure. The New York idea is slavery and free trade. Here, it is slavery and tariff. Both cities cannot get the price of their surrender of principle.

No, fellow-citizens, the more we yield to the demands of the south in order to save the Union, the more we may and must. Their longing eyes are already fixed on Cuba. There is more probability and more danger to-day that Cuba will be annexed to this government within five years, than there was of Texan annexation five years before that event took place. I lately said to a Louisianian, “You will soon be for making a slave state of Cuba.” “No,” said he, “we mean to make two of that.”

Gentlemen, I have already occupied your attention too long. But I am constrained to make a few brief remarks on a subject I would gladly avoid. The occasion of your present meeting is known to all. Two years ago, I was nominated by the Whigs of this district as their candidate for the seat in Congress which I now hold. By the favor of my fellow-citizens of all parties, I received more than eleven thousand out of about thirteen thousand votes cast at that election. I felt assured at that time, that I agreed in all essential articles of political faith with those who gave me their support, otherwise I should not have accepted the office at their hands. I have endeavored faithfully, and according to the best of my ability, to carry out the wishes which they then expressed, and which they well knew that I held. Yet, during the last week, a Whig convention, (so called,) assembled in this place to nominate a candidate for the thirty-second Congress; and, after some close voting, they nominated as my successor, the Hon. Samuel H. Walley,—a gentleman, I am happy to say, towards whom I have always sustained relations of personal kindness. In the language of the day, that convention threw me overboard. Now it is known to my whole circle of private friends, that, as soon as Congress passed these pro-slavery measures to which I have adverted, my determination was formed not to be a candidate for reëlection. I resolved to return to the people, and labor at home instead of at Washington, in the cause of human freedom. But it was soon given out, in certain influential quarters, that I should not be returned to Congress again, and that I should be stigmatized by a rejection. Unsurpassed efforts, as you all know, have been made to carry out this threat; even the Secretary of State of the United States has made it the occasion for a practical contradiction of all he had ever said against bringing the influence of the government to bear upon the freedom of elections; and the proceedings of the last week’s convention were the first instalment of the penalty which I am to suffer for defending human rights and unmasking their betrayers. It is said that the convention of last week was a packed convention; that it did not represent the wishes of the people. Decorum forbids me to make any such charge, even though it were probably true. In a few days, this point will be settled by the sovereign of us all, at the ballot-box.[18]

But two or three points, to which I wish to call your attention, are contained in the address put forth by the meeting I have referred to. Let me premise, however, that I take no exception to the fact that my acts and opinions should be made the subject of examination and criticism by any body of men, or by any man. It is better that animadversion should be wrong than that it should not be free. Like Aristides, I would write the vote that should banish me, rather than to fetter or control the voter’s will. And now, having laid down these principles in favor of free speech for others, I proceed to exemplify them for myself.

The first charge preferred against me, in the address, is, that I said, in a letter dated on the 3d of May last, and addressed to a portion of my constituents,[19] that I “sympathized on different points with different parties, but was exclusively bound to none.” Upon this, the address remarks, “If we understand his meaning, it is ... that he cannot be our champion and defend our cause, as our true representative should, whenever and wherever called upon.” No, I reply to this, I will not promise beforehand to be any man’s “champion,” nor to defend any man’s “cause,” “whenever and wherever called upon.” This would be to proffer championship and allegiance to men and measures whether they were right or wrong. If any man offers to vote for me on such conditions, I deny him my assistance and disdain his support. Perhaps I do not know what I was made for; but one thing I certainly never was made for, and that is, to put principles on and off, at the dictation of a party, as a lackey changes his livery at his master’s command.

Another remark in the address is, that the compromise measures, so called, excepting the fugitive slave law, were “wise, and that they gave to the free states all they could reasonably ask.” What a stultification, my friends, is this, of ourselves, of our party, and of every department of our state government, for the last ten years. What have you been doing, but resolving, contending, and placing your words and deeds upon the historical records of the state and the nation, against the identical measures now declared to be “wise,” and all for which the free states “could reasonably ask”? I leave this point with a single remark. The address excepts the fugitive slave law from the measures it commends. Before another year is past, will not that most execrable act in modern legislation be palliated or adopted by those who voted for this address?

A third objection to my position is, that I regard the question of the extension of slavery into our territories as paramount to those questions of a pecuniary character, on which we desire to obtain the favorable action of the government. Let this objection against me have its full force. I admit it, in all its length and breadth. I do regard the question of human freedom for our wide-extended territories, with all the public and private consequences dependent upon it, both now and in all futurity, as first, foremost, chiefest among all the questions that have been before the government, or are likely to be before it. When temporary and commercial interests are put in competition with the enduring and unspeakably precious interests of freedom for a whole race, of liberty for a whole country, and of obedience to the will of the Creator, my answer is, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

In an address delivered by Mr. Choate, in 1848, he declared the slavery question to be of “transcendent importance;” and for this sentiment he was universally applauded. Wherein does “paramount importance” so differ from “transcendent importance,” that the one is to be applauded while the other is condemned?

Let me call your attention to one other remark in the address, and I will leave it. It suggests that my course in Congress on the slavery questions has been unacceptable to the south, and that we ought to send a representative who will conciliate them and obtain their good will. Fellow-citizens, do you suppose that any man can be true to the memory of the Pilgrim fathers, and to the love of liberty they bequeathed us, and at the same time true to the spirit of the Cavaliers, and to the wishes of their slave-owning posterity? Eighteen hundred years ago, it was said that no man can serve two masters; but the cupidity of modern times proposes the solution of a problem which Christ declared to be impossible. My opinion is, that the cause of all our present calamity, and of the enduring dishonor of the late measures, is this very desire to conciliate southern favor, instead of giving a manful defence to northern rights.

Finally, fellow-citizens, it is our fortune to live during a great historic crisis in the affairs of the world. This is the age of the useful arts; of discoveries and inventions, which are filling with wealth the garners and the coffers of men. It is the age of commerce, of profit, of finance. One part of our nature is intensely stimulated. Let us beware of the effect of this stimulus upon that nobler portion of our being, which no splendor of opulence nor profusion of luxuries can ever satisfy; which demands allegiance to God, and justice and humanity towards our fellow-men; and which must have them, or die the second death. We may be poor; but let us deprecate and forefend the most calamitous of all poverties,—a poverty of spirit. We may be subjected to great sacrifices; but let us sacrifice every thing else, nay, life itself, before we sacrifice our principles. I commend to you the language of the good Bishop Watson, who, when tempted to stifle the expression of his convictions through the hope of kingly patronage, replied, that it was “Better to seek a fortuitous sustenance from the drippings of the most barren rock in Switzerland, with freedom for his friend, than to batten as a slave at the most luxurious table of the greatest despot in the world.”